Whoa. Like, Whoa man.
What was that? I mean the month of December slipped right through my hands.
I was a crafting fool. I tried to make all of my Christmas presents, but only started on the 10th of December. This was not my brightest move ever.

So everything snuck up on me while I was at my sewing machine. When the big hand and the little hand met at 12:00 on Saturday morning, the morning of the 22nd to be exact, I should have called it quits, but I didn’t. I continued to craft on through to the early morning of Christmas. This, even though we had a family party to attend on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, AND Tuesday nights. I really almost forgot about my 31st birthday. I finished every present I started, and I was happy with them for the most part, so it wasn’t an entirely wasted effort.

If this entry is stilted and insane, I do apologize, but I have fuh-ried my brain. Perhaps if I can resort to some bullet points, I can work out a sampling of the past few days.

• Saturday’s party was a cacophonous extravaganza with Brett’s family. Sadie receives her first Disney Princess of the season. I am still okay, because even though it is a Disney Princess, she is small and kind of sweet looking. We stay out much to late and forget to eat a filling dinner. Sadie is awake half the night looking for her small doll in her big bed, and complaining of hunger pains, but refusing to eat.

• Sunday we stop at a local mall before we go to a party at my Aunt’s house. I am six months pregnant with nothing to wear but spring maternity clothes left over from my last pregnancy. The weather here is on again off again blizzard, and I’m sorry but a linen sun dress just isn’t going to cut it. We arrive an hour late for said party. Sadie receives Disney Princess Dress-Up clothes and Disney Princess high heels. She is in heaven. She immediately dresses up and proceeds to ask every single person at the party, “What do you think of me?” My inner feminist groans and coughs, but she is still surviving. How can I fault her for being attracted to sparkle and feathers? I am a sucker for those things myself.

• Monday we head to my mom’s house. It’s handmade Christmas! Everyone exchanges awesome handmade gifts and I am happy and in love with the world. My mom made Sadie a princess dress that while not technically Disney, is Disney inspired. It is pink and has lace with fancy carriages on it. I’m okay with it because, I mean, it’s handmade!

• Tuesday morning Sadie ignored her pile of presents. Maybe she had x-ray vision and could tell there was not a Disney Princess in site, because she didn’t even want to waste her time. It wasn’t too big a deal as she had received most of her gifts via our sock advent calendar. The pile of wrapped books and art supplies looked pretty depressed as we headed out to my mom’s for brunch. We were supposed to just be celebrating my mom’s birthday, but instead she gave us more presents. She gave Sadie a stocking with guess what? Disney Princess Pez Dispensers! Sadie was overjoyed and spent the morning having them make out with each other.

• Tuesday afternoon we head for Brett’s Mom’s house. We socialized with the family and then decided to open gifts before dinner. I’m pretty sure the following events were not due to hunger or exhaustion, but Sadie was afflicted with both conditions I’m sure, which probably just exacerbated the situation.
Sadie has a cousin who is a year older than her. They get along pretty well, and have common interests. For Christmas this year, we suggested that Brett’s mom get Sadie a doll high chair and a lovely little cloth doll. One of the reasons we liked this doll was because she was not dressed in hyper-slutty clothes, and she is just a regular girl, no crown in site! We were so foolish.
Brett’s mom got Sadie’s cousin a Barbie Disney Princess Coach, a Barbie Snow White, and a Barbie Cinderella. Never ever have I experienced a heartbreaking parenting moment like I did this Christmas.
Sadie’s cousin was really sweet and let Sadie play with her Snow White Doll, but when we told her that the doll was her cousin’s and not hers Sadie lost it. She wept big giant tears that kicked my inner feminist in the brass balls and made me want to tear at my own skin.
I mean, I am pregnant, so I am already prone to hyper emotionalism, but this was just really really sad to me. Who hasn’t experienced the pain of watching someone else get exactly what you desire, and to realize that it just isn’t going to happen for you? It sucked big time.
I told Sadie that we could go to the store and find her some dolls too, but that for that evening, the doll wasn’t hers. After the assurance that she too could have her own Disney Princess Christmas, she was fine and just clutched tightly to Snow White until we went home, way too late at night again.

• Wednesday I wake up to my beautiful daughter and my handsome husband singing me Happy Birthday! They gave me the most awesome present (a shorter post to follow on that once we retrieve my camera from Brett’s mom’s house!) and delicious breakfast. Sadie spends the day with her granny and on the way out of the house she tries to grab her Target gift card so we can go get her Disney Princess dolls. I told her that probably wasn’t going to happen until Thursday, and she handles it pretty well. After all, her Granny has a bunch of Disney Princess toys at her house to play with. This will tide her off for a day.

• Today Sadie told me that she was going to get a white horse, princess coach, and dolls. I really admired her obsessiveness and dedication and so we spent the day trekking around town trying to track down those damn Disney Princesses. I have not shopped after Christmas for so long, and I was frightened by what I saw. Shelves were bare and little children were clawing at the toys that remained. Bleary eyed parents and grandparents ran into each other without exchanging even the most basic pleasantries. It was scary out there! After going to THREE stores Sadie has her Barbie Disney Princess friends in hand, and I am in a state of confusion.
My parenting choices and personal principals are for the most part very compatible. This Disney Princess festival has however, thrown me. I mean, I am just really confused about how I can reconcile wanting to respect Sadie’s choices, and also trying to educate her about the pitfalls of the patriarchy! I think we sort of combined the two with our book choices for the holidays, we bought many Princess books with different messages than the Disney archetype. Yet, still Sadie eats it up like delicious pink frosted cake, and it is making me sick to my stomach!

Uh, anyway, that’s a long holiday wrap up with a rant and a bow, made just for you! I had to puke that out so I can get back to posting on a regular basis. If you made it this far, I just have to say, I hope you had a great holiday! Here’s a gift for you!